Instead of examining leaves for nibbles and rust, I prefer to perch on my porch steps and, overlook the butterfly garden. From there, I can watch the bees forage in the borage and orange and white butterflies sail across the cosmos, lavender and sage. The reward for my laziness is nowhere more evident, however, than in the scene I happened upon today: two lustful ladybugs surrounded by aphids. It turns out that nature, when left alone, really does take care of itself.

9 comments:

As always, your gardens are wonderful! I just came in from weeding my "ecosystem". Too much rain, the weeds are taking over everything! I am thinking ecosystem is too nice of word... More like wild jungle! :o)

Love your Gulf Fritillary. The silvery underside of the wings is so pretty when they flap around. Do you have a passionflower planted somewhere? That's the host plant for its caterpillars and guarantees you'll see lots of these beauties. It's also fun to see the black carpenter bees walk in circles on the flat flowers and then fly off with a big dollop of pollen on their backs.

Yesterday I went to visit a friend who recently received a gift of a pray mantis in a jar. For food, my friend has to look for bugs (but not ants). A piece of cake, you think. But there are so few insects to be found in their garden. Apparently there was a neighborhood wide spray of Roundup recently. Afterwards, bugs disappeared.

That just bewilders and worries me, since my friend has a toddler and a baby.

It's not that I am huge fan of bugs, but their proportional appearance shows the balance in nature. Rachel Carson wrote the famous Silent Spring when DDT virtually killed all the birds. What do we call it when all the bugs are killed? I don't know but I have a very bad feeling about it.

Marguerite: My pleasure. I truly enjoyed your blog when I came across it in the "AllTop" email discussion. I had to share it!

Cindy: Neighborhood wide spray? That's pretty scary. Bugs, to me, really show the balance. Gaia's Garden is a great book that lists insect attracting plants. Birds eat the insects so if the insects go . . . Not good!

Jenn: It was such an opportunity. I never get the chance to take photos like that so I just had to post it!